Insights as they arise

Category Archives: Insight

In my “younger days” I have been used to things happening fast. Didn’t realize that out of ten things I did, only less than half succeeded. Half is good. Actually, perhaps one in ten was a “good” success factor. Speak to those who are seen to have succeeded and who are honest with you. One in ten is pretty good. I’m not talking about financial investment proportions, where you lose $10 to gain $1. That will beg bad if even the successful one was a one off event. Even in business type events, there is a situation where you eventually get prolonged returns that will give you more than ten times your initial investment.

What I’m trying to do here is to tell those of you who are tired, and who are frustrated by failures, or by non-results to not lose heart.

At the same time, to find some time and space to observe and analyze. And here’s another strange thing in life. When you’re really busy and running fast, full of hope and enthusiasm, you have no time to sit and think. So, when you do have the time, meaning you are not in the midst of a rush, do find time to sit and think. Even if the think is nothing to do with what you’re trying to do today, this week or this month. Think. Find time for yourself to spend with yourself.

What about time thinking around the business, beside the unplanned mental times?

Think through some business ideas whether or not you get any positive endings in the thoughts. If you only want thoughts that have instant conclusions, then you are not really stretching your mind isn’t it?

Practice.

I can’t put this in more attractive ways. But that’s just the nature of truth. It’s you get it or you don’t. Nothing romantically attractive about it. But just a few words that inspire you, ha!

The past decade has seen a proliferation of certification programmes. Some are better and some are ****.

There was a time when I had friends who sought out any and every certificate they can collect.

I think there is a slowing down. One reason is the economic recession that makes people and employers more careful where they put their money. Another is the realisation that jobs depend on more substantive life things than just certificates.

Certificates are still useful. Hey, I still make a part of my living in putting on certification courses. At least the few that I believe in and am qualified to do. But you better be good in the subject that you are certified in. The days of hiding behind waffles and colleagues are gone. You may be the only person handling an important responsibility and having several jobs to do.

I think the days of getting jobs based on certificates of subject matter that one has no knowledge, beyond the exams questions is largely over. And that’s a good thing, for employers and also for genuine training providers and certification bodies’ reputation.

I am in Taiwan for a while. A month already. Really nice people. Do not see the dog eat dog attitude I have found in some other places. What surprised me initially, was the cost of food. It’s high for what I expect, given the slower development here. Thigh it depends on where you eat, I tend to go for the mixed rice shops where common worker types go. I paid about 60 to 90 Taiwan new dollar. (100 NT is about US$3.30 or Malaysian RM13.20). Soup and tea usually thrown in. I found in my travels that our Malaysian/Singapore etc environment of always (almost) trying to upsell you drinks when you buy a meal not so common here. Made me realise the types of pressure we are subject to daily, where we no longer even recognise that it is a pressure that’s forces you to decide one way or another.

Back to prices. Cheapest mixed rice I had recently in Malaysia was RM3+.. Leaving aside the plain nasi lemak or roti Chennai and tosai which can go for two ringgit.

Sorry. Bloody ipad is a real pain when i try to resize pictures to let them be small enough to fit in a web blog. Why, Apple, Why? I thought Apple’s speaciality was to make it easy for humans who dont need to get into the techie stuff. Now???

Somehow I like this picture. The side profile seem to have some natural aesthetic about it. I was going to crop out the right hand side of the picture, but decided to keep the “noise” because it seems to balance the weight that the mind attaches to the guards tummy, and the side it is facing.

This is a simple picture. Quite boring. Unless you notice the hand on the head of the person and wonder why. Then you look around the picture for some clue. Is he puzzled by something? Is it something he is thinking of, or something he has just see or heard? You can probably write a whole page, or more, of the story from just this one picture.

As I grow old (er) there are fewer things that really upset me. Though I seem to be complaining a lot more about those things that do (working on these).

One thing which I think will stay with me, is the compulsion to keep spreading the message about the terrible wastage of food in many places. There is no race or place in the world that is immune to this tendency among some of its better fed individuals.

Taking more food than we can, or want to eat, at one sitting, is something that we can learn to be conscious of. I do not think that people (except the mentally sick) deliberately start off with wanting to throw excess food away. Nevertheless it is a mental condition that is a lack of awareness. Awareness of the degree of hunger or need to nourish ourselves. Even the joy of eating something that looks or smells nice. Our favourite dish. There is a physical limit to how much we can eat. Consciousness of this at the moment in time when we are at the buffet table line will help us to moderate our actions.

I would hve liked to use the element of fear, in this message. The karma thing. Where it all comes full circle and you end up in a life where you face starvation simply because those who have are wasting food that could have been more than enough to feed those who have not. But I will not. Because it is good enough, and better, simply to be aware of our real needs, versus our purely psychological tendencies, driven by a hundred demons (the little examined past experiences that shape our present attitudes ). This is not just about food. It is about your own self development.

I will revisit this theme again, elaborating on and relating this to other topics. Because, there is so much wastage going on in our lives. There is no need to be austere or be a yogi (heaven forbid). Life can be enjoyed to the full, with all the good experiences meant for you to experience in this life.

There is a common perception that in order to benefit from exercises all from sports we need to suffer pain.at the same time, there is also a belief that pain is a warning by our system, the body system, that something is wrong somewhere and that we need to protect the part that is suffering pain.

Clearly, there is truth in both of these statements. The difference is the situation under which we will apply either one of these beliefs. I should not use the word belief, because we need to look at the facts of the individual case.

There must be some sort of criteria, guidelines, that we can make use of in deciding whether the pain that we are currently suffering from, in a given situation, is one that we should try to minimize or try to remove the source of pain in any way. We ought to, perhaps even increase the pain significantly, in order to take away the problem permanently.

Give this matter some thought, because all of us will at some point or other, face this decision. Leaving the decision to others to tell us what to do is not a good idea. Because the pain can only be felt by we ourself and the way that we verbalize the condition to another person, even a doctor, may not do justice to the actual condition.

My Injured ankle. X-ray MRI did not help the “specialist” doctors diagnose the problem let alone the cure. More on this on a later post.

When I saw this old building in front of the modern glass walled skyscraper, I thought of whether it reflects the changing taste in society of this place. If so, is it due to evolving ideas of what is desirable in a building? Or is it a change brought about by advances in technology. That is, limitations of technology determine what is desirable, to an extent.

Increasing rates of change in our environment and technology has led us to believe that what is impossible today, may one day be possible. Often within our lifetime. Science fiction has become reality.

What then is the next step-wise change in our thoughts? When there is the self confidence that what we wish for, can be achieved, with time and resources, what then is the next level of expectations?

A philosophical question? A moral question? Or is even the type of question yet to be understood and given a name!

Thinking out of the box may be a good thing. But there’s a problem when it’s applied. In order to think out of the box, you have to be able to know where the box is. This is often missed out. The box is different according to the scenario and the area of study. There is no such thing as a universal box where you can say that “this is the boundary of the box” and apply that to all situations.

Names are important in helping us to be clear about what we mean. And the same the other way around. If we wish to convey some piece of information the choice of words is one factor that determines The success or failure of our communication.

This is easier said than done. Many other factors have to be considered in tandem. The listener and the speaker may attach different meanings to a particular word. The context of the moment and place of the interaction is another factor. The mood of each person may also change by the minute. Body language may be correctly or incorrectly interpreted.

What does this mean? Is the guy thinking deeply? Puzzled? Starting to get a heart attack? Wondering what the ladder is doing on the ground? Angry with the ladder?

This is a topic that we can revisit many more times with further insight.